Handheld electronic device including toggle of a selected data source, and associated method

ABSTRACT

A method for enabling input into a handheld electronic device having at least three selectable languages available thereon includes detecting a predetermined input a number of times and switching a selected language between one of the three selectable languages and another of the three selectable languages wherein the another language is an immediately preceding selected language.

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/396,275, filed Mar. 31, 2006 now U.S. Pat. No.7,881,923, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to electronicdevices and, more particularly, to a method for switching among aplurality of languages that are stored on a handheld electronic device.

2. Description of the Related Art

Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples ofsuch handheld devices include, for instance, personal data assistants(PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and thelike. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wirelesscommunication capability, although many such handheld devices arestand-alone devices that are functional without communication with otherdevices.

Handheld electronic devices are used in a variety of language settingsand users can often find themselves writing text in multiple languages.For example, a user might reply to one email message in French andanother in English. However, in order to utilize a handheld electronicdevice's advanced features, such as disambiguation, the user might haveto select the language that, for example, corresponds to the language ofthe original message to which he/she is replying. It would be desirableto meet this need and others in an efficient fashion that makes thehandheld electronic device easier to use.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A full understanding of the disclosed and claimed concept can be gainedfrom the following Description when read in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a top plan view of an improved handheld electronic device inaccordance with the disclosed and claimed concept;

FIG. 2 is a schematic depiction of the improved handheld electronicdevice of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a depiction of an output that can be displayed on an outputapparatus of the improved handheld electronic device; and

FIG. 4 is a flowchart depicting an embodiment of an improved method inaccordance with the disclosed and claimed concept.

DESCRIPTION

The accompanying figures and the description that follows set forth thedisclosed and claimed concept in its preferred embodiments. It is,however, contemplated that persons generally familiar with handheldelectronic devices will be able to apply the novel characteristics ofthe structures and methods illustrated and described herein in othercontexts by modification of certain details. Accordingly, the figuresand description are not to be taken as restrictive on the scope of thedisclosed and claimed concept, but are to be understood as broad andgeneral teachings.

When referring to the term “language object” and variations thereof,such designations shall refer broadly to any type of object that may beconstructed, identified, or otherwise obtained from one or morelinguistic elements, that can be used alone or in combination togenerate text, and that would include, for example and withoutlimitation, words, shortcuts, symbols, ideograms, and the like.

When referring to the term “linguistic element” and variations thereof,such designations shall refer broadly to any element that itself can bea language object or from which a language object can be constructed,identified, or otherwise obtained, and thus would include, but not belimited to, characters, letters, strokes, symbols, ideograms, phonemes,morphemes, digits (numbers), and the like.

When referring to the term “window” and variations thereof, suchdesignations by way of example, and not limitation, shall refer to avisualized layer, tile, overlay or other similar variant thereof that isoutput on a display or screen.

When referring to the term “reduced” and variations thereof in thecontext of a keyboard, a keypad, or other arrangement of input members,such designations shall refer broadly to an arrangement in which atleast one of the input members has assigned thereto a plurality oflinguistic elements such as, for example, characters in the set of Latinletters.

When referring to the phrase “chording actuation” and variationsthereof, such designations are meant to cover instances when two or morekeys are actuated in succession or simultaneously.

For purposes of the description hereinafter, the terms “upper”, “lower”,“right”, “left”, “vertical”, “horizontal”, “top”, “bottom”, andderivatives thereof shall relate to the disclosed and claimed concept asit is oriented in the figures.

An improved handheld electronic device 2 is indicated generally in FIG.1 and is depicted schematically in FIG. 2. The exemplary improvedhandheld electronic device 2 includes a housing 4 upon which aredisposed a processor unit that includes an input apparatus 6, an outputapparatus 8, a processor 10, and a memory 12. The processor 10 may be,for instance, and without limitation, a microprocessor (μP) and isresponsive to inputs from the input apparatus 6 and provides outputsignals to the output apparatus 8. The processor 10 also interfaces withthe memory 12. The processor 10 and the memory 12 together form aprocessor apparatus.

As can be understood from FIG. 1, the input apparatus 6 includes akeypad 14 and a trackwheel 16. As will be described in greater detailbelow, the keypad 14 is in the exemplary form of a reduced QWERTYkeyboard including a plurality of keys 18 that serve as input members.It is noted, however, that the keypad 14 may be of other configurations,such as an AZERTY keyboard, a QWERTZ keyboard, or other keyboardarrangement, whether presently known or unknown, and either reduced ornot reduced.

The system architecture of the improved handheld electronic device 2advantageously is organized to be operable independent of the specificlayout of the keypad 14. Accordingly, the system architecture of theimproved handheld electronic device 2 can be employed in conjunctionwith virtually any keypad layout without requiring any meaningful changein the system architecture. It is further noted that certain featuresset forth herein are usable on either or both of a reduced keyboard anda non-reduced keyboard.

The keys 18 are located on a front face 20 of the housing 4, and thetrackwheel 16 is located at a side 26 of the housing 4. In addition tothe keys 18, the trackwheel 16 can serve as another input member sincethe trackwheel 16 is capable of being rotated, as indicated by arrow 24,and depressed generally toward the housing 4, as indicated by arrow 26.Rotation of the trackwheel 16 provides selection inputs to the processor10, while depression of the trackwheel 16 provides another selectioninput to the processor 10.

The output apparatus 8 includes a display 28 upon which can be providedan output 30. An exemplary output 30 on the display 28 is depicted inFIG. 1. The output 30 includes a text component 32 and a variantcomponent 34. As can be seen from FIG. 1, the variant component 34extends substantially horizontally across the display 28. This, however,is not meant to be limiting since the variant component 34 can alsoextend across the display 28 substantially vertically or in otherfashions. Preferably, the variant component 34 is located generally inthe vicinity of the text component 32. The variant component 34 includesa number of outputs 36 from which the user can select. The variantcomponent 34 also includes a selection box 38 that appears in a defaultposition 39. As described in commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser.No. 10/931,281 entitled “Handheld Electronic Device with TextDisambiguation,” the outputs 36 are proposed by the text disambiguationfunction as being the most likely disambiguated interpretation of theambiguous input provided by the user. The selection box 38 is capable ofbeing moved (i.e. shifted) from the default position 39 to a number ofdifferent positions 40 by depressing or actuating the <NEXT> key 42 orby rotating the trackwheel 16. The display 28 also includes a caret(i.e. cursor) 44 that depicts generally where the next output will bedisplayed.

The memory 12 is depicted schematically in FIG. 2. The memory 12 can beany of a variety of types of internal and/or external storage media suchas, without limitation, RAM, ROM, EPROM(s), EEPROM(s), and the like thatprovide a storage register for data storage such as in the fashion of aninternal storage area of a computer, and can be volatile memory ornonvolatile memory. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the memory 12 is inelectronic communication with the processor 10. The memory 12additionally can include one or more routines depicted generally withthe numeral 46 for the processing of data. The routines 46 can be in anyof a variety of forms such as, without limitation, software, firmware,and the like. As will be explained in greater detail below, the routines46 include a routine that can be executed to perform a method inaccordance with the disclosed and claimed concept as well as otherroutines that are utilized by the improved handheld electronic device 2.

Additionally, the memory 12 can also store a variety of data sources 48such as, without limitation, one or more selectable input methodlanguages (i.e. “language” or “languages”) 50 having language objectsassociated therewith. The input method languages 50 may also havecorresponding linguistic sources 52 such as a generic word list or alanguage rule set. FIG. 2 depicts the memory 12 as containing threeinput method languages 50. The first input method language 54 can beEnglish, the second input method language 56 can be French, and thethird input method language 58 can be Spanish. It is noted, however,that despite FIG. 2 depicting only three input method languages 54, 56,58 being stored on memory 12, the total number of input method languages50 that can be stored in the memory 12 is limited only by the memory's12 capacity. When an input method language 50 is selected, the selectedinput method language becomes the operative language of the improvedhandheld electronic device 2. The operative language is the preferreddata source for disambiguating ambiguous inputs that are entered intothe improved handheld electronic device 2.

Referring to FIG. 3, the languages 50 can be selected from a window 60that is displayed on the output apparatus 8 upon detection of apredetermined input. The predetermined input can be a chording actuationof at least two input members. For instance, the predetermined input canbe a chording actuation of the <ALT> key 62 and the <ENTER> key 64. Inanother embodiment, the predetermined input can be a press-and-holdactuation of the <ALT> key 62 followed by an actuation of the <ENTER>key 64. In yet another embodiment, the predetermined input can be apress-and-release actuation of the <ALT> key 62 followed by an actuationof the <ENTER> key 64. As can be seen from FIG. 3, the window 60includes several user-selectable representations 66 of the languages 50that are available on the improved handheld electronic device 2. Thewindow 60 also includes a selection box 68 that is capable of beingmoved (i.e. shifted) from the default position 70 to a number ofdifferent positions 40 by rotating the trackwheel 16 or by actuating the<NEXT> key 42. A user selects the language that is highlighted in theselection box 68 by either depressing the trackwheel 16 or by actuatingthe <ENTER> key 64. Upon selection of one of the languages in the window60, the selected language becomes the operative language of the improvedhandheld electronic device 2.

In order to prevent the user from unintentionally switching thelanguages on the improved handheld electronic device 2, a caution windowcan be displayed that asks the user to confirm whether a language changeis desired. The caution window can be displayed immediately after thedetection of the predetermined input but prior to displaying the window60 or the caution window can be displayed after the window 60 has beendisplayed.

In order to facilitate the entry of text into the improved handheldelectronic device 2, the disclosed and claimed concept allows a user ofthe improved handheld electronic device 2 to rapidly switch between aplurality of languages that are available on the improved handheldelectronic device 2. Specifically, the improved handheld electronicdevice 2 upon detection of a predetermined input will either: switch theoperative language to another language wherein the another language isan immediately preceding operative language or switch the operativelanguage to a language that is selected from the window 60. The improvedhandheld electronic device 2 will switch the operative language to theimmediately preceding operative language if the improved handheldelectronic device 2 detects a text input, such as an actuation of a key18 that is assigned to one or more linguistic elements, after thedetection of the predetermined input. To illustrate, if the operativelanguage on the improved handheld electronic device 2 is English and theimmediately preceding operative language is French, then upon detectionof a text input, such as the actuation of the key 18 to which the letter“A” is assigned, the improved handheld electronic device 2 will switchthe operative language from English to French. The improved handheldelectronic device 2 will switch the current operative language to thelanguage that is ultimately selected from the window 60 if the improvedhandheld electronic device 2 detects a selection input, such as therotation of the trackwheel 16 or an actuation of the <NEXT> key 42,after the detection of the predetermined input.

One advantage to the disclosed concept is that the user is able torapidly switch between languages that are available on the improvedhandheld electronic device 2 without having to reposition the user'sfingers from the keypad 14 because the input members required to executethe predetermined input are located on the keypad 14.

Another advantage to the disclosed concept is that the user does nothave to exit the program in which data is being entered in order tochange the operative language on the improved handheld electronic device2 since the change can be implemented by a simple chording actuation oftwo or more input members.

Yet another advantage to the disclosed concept is that it reduces theamount of time and the number of keystrokes required to implement alanguage change since the operative language will automatically switch,after the detection of a predetermined input, to an immediatelypreceding operative language upon the detection of a text input.

To implement the method, the improved handheld electronic device 2includes one or more routines 46, stored in memory 12 and executable bythe processor 10, for switching between multiple languages available onthe improved handheld electronic device 2. A flowchart depicting oneembodiment of the routine is depicted in FIG. 4.

As can be understood from FIG. 4, the routine begins at step 100, wherethe improved handheld electronic device 2 detects a predetermined input.In response to the detection of the predetermined input at step 100, theimproved handheld electronic device 2 displays, as at step 102, a window60 having representations 66 of the selectable languages that areavailable on the improved handheld electronic device 2. The improvedhandheld electronic device 2 then detects, as at step 104, an input, anddetermines, as at step 106, whether the input at step 104 is a textinput. If the input, at step 104 is a text input, then the improvedhandheld electronic device 2 switches, as at step 108, the operativelanguage between one of the languages and another language where theanother language is an immediately preceding operative language. If theinput, at step 104, is not a text input, then the improved handheldelectronic device 2 detects, at step 110, a selection of one of therepresentations 66 of the languages 50 displayed in the window 60. Inresponse to the selection at step 110, the improved handheld electronicdevice 2 sets, as at step 112, as the operative language the language(i.e. second language) that corresponds to the selected representation.

While specific embodiments of the disclosed and claimed concept havebeen described in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in theart that various modifications and alternatives to those details couldbe developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure.Accordingly, the particular arrangements disclosed are meant to beillustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the disclosed andclaimed concept which is to be given the full breadth of the claimsappended and any and all equivalents thereof.

1. A handheld electronic device comprising an input apparatus, aprocessor apparatus, and an output apparatus, said input apparatuscomprising a number of input members, said processor apparatuscomprising a processor and a memory having stored therein a plurality ofobjects comprising a plurality of language objects, said memory havingstored therein at least three selectable languages available thereon,one of said at least three selectable languages being an operativelanguage, and another of said at least three selectable languages havingbeen the operative language immediately prior to the one of saidselectable languages, said memory also having stored therein a number ofroutines which, when executed by said processor, causes said handheldelectronic device to perform operations comprising: detecting apredetermined input; detecting a text input, wherein said text input isoutput by the output apparatus; and in response to said detecting saidtext input, switching said operative language between said one of saidat least three selectable languages and said another of said at leastthree selectable languages.
 2. The handheld electronic device, accordingto claim 1 wherein said input members include a plurality of keys andsaid routine causes said handheld electronic device to performoperations further comprising detecting as said predetermined input achording actuation of at least two of said keys.
 3. The handheldelectronic device, according to claim 2 wherein said chording actuationis an actuation of a first key followed by an actuation of a second key.4. The handheld electronic device, according to claim 2 wherein saidchording actuation is a press-and-hold actuation of a first key and anactuation of a second key.
 5. The handheld electronic device, accordingto claim 2 wherein said chording actuation is a press-and-releaseactuation of a first key and an actuation of a second key.